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Life is not always clear and easy to figure out. So grab a cup of coffee and your bifocals and let's see what we can see.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Long Distance Grannie

I have mentioned before that 2 of our grand children live far away. In fact they live on the other side of the country. Phone calls are hard because of the time difference. By time we think of calling them, they are not home yet from running around after school/work or it's too early in the morning and they are not up yet. As a result, I find that we go weeks not knowing what is happening over there. I have a great daughter-in-law (DIL) who will let us know when things happen in emails and Face Book (FB) is wonderful for keeping up on some things but I can’t hug them on FB and I can’t play with them on FB. I find that the more time I have with "the girls", the more I realize how much I am missing with "the boys". :-(

Recently, the teacher of our oldest grandson who is in school now, was conducting a project where each child made a “Paper them” and sent them out to family members who life far away. We got our “Paper B” in the mail with a nice letter asking us to send information about our home town/city/state back to the school, to sign the back of “Paper B” and then send “Him” on to another home to continue the journey. Well this was so nice and got me so excited that we also took “Paper B” around town and took pictures of where he had been. Then we sent the photos and a cute letter back to his school –and teacher- and sent the “Paper B” off to a cousin in Maryland to continue the journey. Here are some photos of us with our “Paper Grandson – Paper B”.

We of course had to feed "Paper B" because "He was hungry"

"He" came to us on a very cold day so we warmed "him" up by the fire

We took "Him" to the town Library

We also took "Him" to the Fire Station

And of Course to the Town Hall

We then took "Him" to the Police Station

It was very cold when"He" got to us and I hope "He" enjoys his trip to Maryland.

How do you grandparents of children far away keep in contact with your grand kids?Do you Skype with them? How about those books where you can record your own voice and read the story to them? Share with me some things you do so that you and your grand kids can be a little closer. I'm looking for ideas here!!

3 comments:

This is a topic close to my heart. We have 10 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Eight are in Ohio, Toledo and Cleveland and two in Australia. We are forever looking for ways to connect. We live in Munich, Germany. We Skype and play games (chess, checkers, battleship, etc.) with the older ones on Skype. Facebook has helped with the older ones. We make 1 trip a year to Australia to see my husband's 3 children & their family and I make at least two trips to the U.S. to see my 2 and their families. I send the kids small gifts thru Amazon for good grades, holidays, etc. And, each one gets a trip overseas with us when they turn 11. The oldest (18) came to Shanghai when we lived there, the next (16) wanted to go to Hawaii, then last summer we brought the 11 yr old here to Europe. It is our way of getting to know each one better. Hope my ideas help. I would love to know how others handle this problem. My niece sent a paper cut out from her class to our uncle. She called him "Flat Stanley." He had Easter dinner with him last year. What a great idea.

Lynn, Terrific, looks like you had fun. This project is sometimes inspired by a children's book titled Flat Stanley. worth the read. Ken and I have a copy of a cassette tape that his grandfather recorded for Ken's younger cousins. His cousins lived across the country, so their mom would have them make tapes talking to Granny and Poppy telling them about their life. In return Granny, Poppy and a great aunt and uncle would record back. Because they ran out of things to say before the tape ran out, Poppy would read a story , sometimes a long interesting one from Readers' Digest or Life magazine. After Poppy died Aunt Jan made copies for us to have. As a result my children have so enjoyed listening to Poppy's slow, deliberate voice reading a very humorous story read by a great grandpop they never knew. Because we now have so many electronic ways to connect we dont' bother to hand write anything, but letters sent in the mail are precious.

This was cute. I grew up quite a distance from my grandparents so we didn't see a lot of them in person but it didn't change the love I felt for them in my heart. I loved getting real mail from my grandparents...even in this electronic age I think kids still love mail. And in this respect the internet is a beautiful thing too...do you Skype? That's a great way to get some face time so to speak.